By Yongnian Zheng

The Governing Logic of the Chinese Communist Party

The history of contemporary China changed its course
when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gained control of mainland China and the
Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to the island of Taiwan after a long civil war
spanning 1927 to 1950.

Why was there a split between the KMT and the CCP?
What made the CCP a winner and the KMT a loser? When this author was on a tour of
the late Deng Xiaoping’s residence in Chongqing, China, the guide quoted some
of Deng’s words. And the answers lay therein — to Deng, the politics of the CCP
is to serve the people, and the role of the CCP is to develop productivity. The
keywords here are CCP, people and productivity. The governing logic of the CCP
is to organize the relationship of these components such that there is a
balance of the three, with the people being the pivot of this equilibrium.

While the ideology of the CCP may seem complicated,
its core simply is “the people.” In this sense, although the concept of
“political party” may have been imported from the West, specifically the
Leninist party, the heart of the CCP is still Confucian culture. As a
philosophy for governance, Confucianism is all about “the people.”

In balancing the three components comes the concepts
of “ultra-left” and “ultra-right” in Chinese political speak. The so-called
“ultra-left” is only concerned with politics, not with economics; the so-called
“ultra-right” is only concerned with economics, not with politics. Either one
will cause inefficacy or even failure of governance. The Confucian way of
“taking the middle path” — or the modern idea of “preventing the ultra-right and
the ultra-left from happening” — is a means to achieve the balance. This logic
can be used to explain the CCP’s success and the KMT’s failure; it can also be
used to explain the socio-economic problems faced by China after its reform and
opening up. It can even be used to explain the rise and fall of a ruling party.

The contest between the CCP and the KMT is the subject
of much scholarly research. Many theories have been thrown up about the failure
of the KMT, but the core reason is that the regime did not start out with the
people in mind, nor did it seek benefits for the people. Mao Zedong and
communists of his era came to a conclusion: since the KMT regime was not able
to serve the people, it should be toppled.

The People are Excluded
from the Political Process

In retrospect, Chiang Kai-shek relied overly on
warlords and local elites to carve out his regime. At the local level, factors
such as people being shut out of the political process, elites not improving
people’s livelihoods, and the corruption of officials had all made the KMT
regime extremely shaky. In contrast, the CCP rose from China’s rural fringes.
As most of the local elites had been absorbed by the KMT, the CCP had to rely
on the masses to strike a bottom-up revolutionary path.

More importantly, the KMT government did not establish
any political thought or belief that was acceptable to the common people. In
other words, the political idea of the KMT was suited only for the elites. The
KMT emphasized the centrality of power and excluded the lower rungs from
political participation. It overlooked the fact that at that time, popular
sovereignty appealed to many Chinese, especially the intellectuals. In contrast
the CCP accepted the notion of popular sovereignty and further modified it such
that the concept was embraced by most of the people. The CCP succeeded in
employing a democratic idea to mobilize the various sectors of the Chinese
society, thus winning it the popular mandate.

After the People’s Republic of China was established
in 1949, the ruling party set about developing the economy. In the early 1950s,
China was successful in its economic development and achieved the initial
stages of industrialization just before the onset of the Cultural Revolution. Even
during the Great Leap Forward, the radical policies that were implemented were
for developing the economy. However, the problem with both policies was that they
were not objective and skewed towards voluntarism. In the haste to build up the
economy, much harm was done to it. With Mao urging the nation to “continue the
revolution,” China ultimately ended up on the ultra-left path, causing a vast
imbalance between politics and economics. The emphasis on pauperism robbed the
people of their livelihoods.

The revolution of
the CCP is to liberate productivity and the goal is to provide welfare for the
people. It has in fact become the governing logic of the CCP.

Naturally, with the return of Deng Xiaoping, reform
and opening up became the most important agenda for the ruling party. Through liberating
productivity, the CCP wanted to snuff out pauperism in the country and hoped
that the people would see that the CCP could bring about benefits for them too.
Deng, having witnessed in the early 1990s the fall of communist regimes in
eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, correctly analysed that the regimes’ downfalls
were due to their inability to develop their economies and provide welfare for
their people. The Soviet Union and the East European regimes, in power for a long
period of time, seemed to have the support of the people. In actual fact, they
ruled their countries with iron fists and their legitimacy was built on thin
ice, which could be destroyed easily by any internal or external vicissitude.
Academics from the Soviet Union and the East European regimes had long sounded
the alarm, but their voices were suppressed or they were treated as dissidents.

After a series of speeches delivered by Deng during
his inspection tour of southern China in 1992, the country embarked on a
large-scale reform and opening up. In the two decades since, China’s economy has
grown in leaps and bounds and it is now the second largest economy and the
largest trading nation in the world. In terms of national income per capita, it
has risen from less than USD 300 in the early 1980s to USD 8000 currently,
placing China in the middle-income nation category.

The revolution of the CCP is to liberate productivity
and the goal of liberating productivity is to provide welfare for the people.
Deng had never wavered from this conviction and it has in fact become the
governing logic of the CCP.

However, just like the Mao era when many wrong paths
were taken, it was not always possible to strike a healthy balance between
liberating productivity and providing welfare. During the two decades of heady economic
growth, many social objectives were left behind. In the singular pursuit for
economic development, GDPism has taken precedence over everything else.

The Ugly
Consequences of GDPism

GPDism has created a series of social problems,
especially in the areas of social security, healthcare, education, public
housing, and environmental protection. Coupled with the effects of
globalization, a huge income gap has opened up between different segments of
society, creating deep social divides. Rather than bolstering social
foundations, economic growth has weakened the social fabric. This is why some
people are worried that Chinese society is becoming unstable or even turbulent.
It seems that the ruling party has forgotten that its most important politics
is the people’s welfare.

Of equally grave consequence is the corruption at
every level of the CCP. Cliques and oligarchies are only interested in amassing
benefits for themselves, their families, and their inner circles. The noble
idea of providing welfare for society and the country has fallen between the
cracks. The CCP is also suffering from a lack of unity and sense of identity.
All these problems are deepening the crisis of a volatile China.

How should we resolve this quagmire — the imbalance of
politics, economics, and the people? The CCP has delved into the problem by
first cleaning up the party, launching a large-scale anti-corruption drive
after its 18th National Congress.

Although some quarters are sceptical of this “internal
surgery” of the CCP, speaking from experience, it is always more effective to
change from within than being forced to change by external factors. The Soviet
Union and the East European regimes are a good example of outside forces — a
demand for democracy — causing the fall of governments. Consequently, a lack in
political responsibility for economic growth resulted in the decline in the economic
health of these countries.

Cleaning up one own’s party is just the beginning. The
ultimate goal is to restore the balance between politics, economics, and the
people. In fact, by first putting the CCP in order, more effective economic
growth will ensue, which is no longer solely concerned with GDP, but which is
beneficial to social justice. At the same time, after receiving their basic
social needs, the people will also need to feel engaged with the political
process. This calls for the CCP to become more open, so as to allow more people
to participate in the political process.

In any society, whenever an imbalance arises between
politics, economics, and the people, there will be a major political crisis. A
good example is the upsurge of populism in the Western world today, showing us
that a sole reliance on the system of “one man one vote” is insufficient to
realise the aspirations of the people.

Abraham Lincoln’s famous words “of the people, by the
people, for the people” have two important points: the people is the core of
politics, and democracy is the means to realise the people’s aspirations.
Comparing Lincoln’s words and those of Deng’s, we can see that both emphasized
“the people,” but the CCP has a different method for providing welfare to the
people. The Western system sees a separation of politics and economics, where
market forces are the overriding factor. Governments have thus found it
difficult to rescue ailing markets, productivity is adversely affected, and in
the end, the people suffer. In contrast, the CCP has made it its responsibility
to develop the economy, and it is now putting its own house in order so as to
prevent a major social crisis from happening.

(Translated by
Chean Chian Cheong)

About The Author

Yongnian Zheng is Professor and Director of East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He is Editor of Series on Contemporary China (World Scientific Publishing) and Editor of China Policy Series (Routledge). He is also a co-editor of China: An International Journal. He has studied both China's transformation and its external relations. His papers have appeared in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Quarterly, Third World Quarterly and China Quarterly. He is the author of 13 books, including Technological Empowerment, De Facto Federalism in China, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China and Globalization and State Transformation in China, and coeditor of 11 books on China's politics and society including the latest volume China and the New International Order (2008).
Besides his research work, Professor Zheng has also been an academic activist. He served as a consultant to United Nation Development Programme on China's rural development and democracy. In addition, he has been a columnist for Xinbao (Hong Kong) and Zaobao (Singapore) for many years, writing numerous commentaries on China's domestic and international affairs.
Professor Zheng received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Beijing University, and his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He was a recipient of Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1995-1997) and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2003-2004). He was Professor and founding Research Director of the China Policy Institute, the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.